{"id":420,"date":"2010-11-22T06:00:21","date_gmt":"2010-11-22T06:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp\/2010\/11\/intertext\/"},"modified":"2018-03-07T19:00:35","modified_gmt":"2018-03-08T00:00:35","slug":"intertext","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/2010\/11\/intertext.html","title":{"rendered":"Intertext"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his anxiety<\/a>, Johannes Brahms read the slow movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s piano sonata, opus 10, number 3,\"B10no3aj.jpg\"
\nand penned his own intermezzo in E-flat Minor, opus 118, number 6:
\n\"br118no6aj.jpg\"<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n(If D goes to C-sharp, then D Minor can go to E-flat Minor. Up can be down. 6\/8 and eighth-notes, or 3\/8 and sixteenths. Largo e mesto<\/em>. Dies Irae<\/em>? D-Es?)\n<\/p>\n

\nEarlier misprision led Brahms from playing the slow movement of Beethoven’s Opus 2, number 2,\n<\/p>\n

\n\"B2no2aj.jpg\"<\/a>to writing down the slow movement of his own cello sonata in F Major, opus 99:\n<\/p>\n

\n\"brahms99.jpg\"<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\nBeethoven knew Schubert’s Erlk\u00f6nig<\/em>. And those sonatas by Dussek. How clever of Beethoven! But that’s not the point. Because this is not history. Given a language — a culture of scripting — texts intersect, overlap. Texts refer, redact.\n<\/p>\n

\nSchubert’s B-flat-Major Sonata (now D. 960), written in 1828, was published for the first time in 1838. Schumann wrote about the sonata in an article concerning Schubert’s last pieces<\/a>, confessing: “There was a time when I spoke only reluctantly about Schubert, and only in the night to the trees and the stars… I thought of nothing but him.” Also in ’38, Schumann wrote his opus 16, Kreisleriana<\/em>. But, this isn’t a matter of history, of real or imagined events.\n<\/p>\n

\nThere’s the beginning of Schumann’s text (opus 16, number 2), with its registration, voicing, metric placement with syncopated phrase beginning, and key:\n<\/p>\n

\n\"Sch16no2aj.jpg\"<\/a>And there’s the beginning of Schubert’s text:
\n\"Sch960aj.jpg\"\n<\/p>\n

\nThere’s the F-sharp\/G-flat ambiguity\/trade\/unity in Schumann’s text:
\n\"Sch16no2bAJb.jpg\"
\nAnd in Schubert’s text, G-flat\/F-sharp, here and pervasively in the sonata:
\n\"Sch960bAJ.jpg\"<\/a>The beautiful\/sinister\/poignant resolution of the low G-flat is an octave lower in Schubert’s text,\"Sch960cAJ.jpg\"<\/a>than it is in Schumann’s:\"Sch16no2dAJ.jpg\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his anxiety, Johannes Brahms read the slow movement of Ludwig van Beethoven’s piano sonata, opus 10, number 3, and penned his own intermezzo in E-flat Minor, opus 118, number 6: (If D goes to C-sharp, then D Minor can go to E-flat Minor. Up can be down. 6\/8 and eighth-notes, or 3\/8 and sixteenths. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[55,47,57,52,53,54,16,56],"class_list":{"0":"post-420","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-anxiety-of-influence","9":"tag-beethoven","10":"tag-brahms","11":"tag-intertext","12":"tag-intertextuality","13":"tag-misprision","14":"tag-schubert","15":"tag-schumann","16":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4766,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions\/4766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/pianomorphosis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}